ISFFARA, July 29, 2014, Asia-Plus — Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan have agreed to withdraw supernumerary troops from border areas.
“Withdrawal of supernumerary troops from border areas began last Saturday,” an official source at the Isfara mayor’s office told Asia-Plus in an interview.
According to him, a decision on withdrawal of supernumerary troops was taken in Isfara at a meeting, co-chaired by the head of Tajikistan’s Main Border Guard Directorate Rajabali Rahmonali and his Kyrgyz counterpart Rayimberdy Duyishenbiyev.
An incident that took place along the Tajik-Kyrgyz border on July 10 was a major topic of the meeting, the source said.
The meeting reportedly resulted in signing of a protocol, under which the sides agree to exchange information on the situation in border areas and respond promptly to changes in the situation. The sides also agree to patrol the Amdyk-Bedak stretch of the common border jointly.
We will recall that one Tajik national was killed and at least seven other Tajik nationals were wounded on July 10 as Kyrgyz border guards opened fire on local citizens in Tajikistan’s Vorukh exclave inside Kyrgyzstan.
Both sides blamed each other for starting an incident on July 10 in which one Tajik national was killed and seven others, including two border guards, were injured.
The Kyrgyz side later claimed that Tajik border guards fired mortars and a grenade launcher toward Kyrgyz territory after the incident. Kyrgyz authorities say one Kyrgyz border guard was injured and hospitalized.
Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan have been locked in a tense border disputed for months around Vorukh, which is part of Tajikistan, but due to past redrawing of borders, it exists as an exclave some 20 kilometers inside Kyrgyzstan.
